The Founding Fathers who wrote and signed the constitution thought it was constitutional to mandate people buy health care.
Do you think anyone cares about the founding fathers? They will find a way to disregard that or spin it someway. At the end, the tea party guys will claim that the founding fathers would have hated Obamacare and stood against it as tyranny no matter what the evidence.
If Kagan recuses herself then Kennedy's vote won't matter. She was Solicitor General when this lawsuit was brought forth. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/31/judge-uses-obamas-words-against-him/ Also, the government told the judge the law wouldn't work without the mandate, so that made it easy for him to throw the whole thing out.
I don't expect the tea party to look at evidence or history or the true intent of the founding fathers and our constitution. I don't even know that I expect the Supreme Court to do that. But I have to hope they Supreme court can do it, and if not, it's still important that thinking people everywhere be able to look at the evidence and if things go against the true intent of the constitution that people be aware of it, and fight back against the tea party and those that are pushing at Health Care as being unconstitutional.
The government has the right to mandate that you have insurance because the government has already passed a law stating that hospitals must treat you regardless of whether or not you can pay. To keep those aforementioned hospitals from going bankrupt the government bails them out annually with your tax dollars through the disproportionate share system. Since the government is funding your healthcare you have two choices, let the hospitals off the hook and allow them to deny you treatment or force you to carry insurance to cover treatment. It's just hilarous that the "personal responsibility and accountability" and we hate welfare and bailouts crowd wants to continue to allow people to get away with not paying their bills and essentially continue this healthcare welfare. It's your taxdollars Cons and teabaggers that are paying for these people's healthcare. Yet you would prefer to keep paying for them rather than force them to pay for themselves?
Ah yes, the "we support you so we own you" argument, very inspiring. Besides, that's not a constitutional argument anyway. If the mandate is constitutional, the 10th Amendment is meaningless.
No I said you had a choice. Repeal the mandate or repeal forcing hospitals to treat you if you cannot pay them.
It's a shame that there is all this fury over this relatively toothless health care reform. Without price controls, this doesn't go as far as it should anyway - but, that being said, at least I can get insurance despite my type 1 diabetes should misfortune hit me. It's not much, but it's something.
You are too idealistic. These guys don't really care about the constitution or what our founding fathers wanted, it's all politics and beating out the liberals. If Bush has proposed this health plan it would have been hailed as a conservative solution - because IT IS A SOLUTION INVENTED BY CONSERVATIVES! That just goes to show how crazy they are. You have way too much faith in our system. It's about politics, not "law of the land" "founding fathers" or any of that stuff.
Even if the gov't removed such laws, Doctors abide by the Hippocratic oath which would forbid them from allowing someone to die on the street, beyond it being just cruel. Furthermore, what if you couldn't find someone's ID if they had an emergency? Would you refuse to treat them since they might not have health insurance? If someone is having a heart attack - do you first check their insurance card? I think Republicans should volunteer that if Health Care gets repealed, every Republican should wear a sticker that says, "Please check to see if I have health insurance before treating me".
People who wrote and signed the constitution originally believed that it was perfectly constitutional to mandate health insurance. They did it.
Its hardly a toothless reform. Even if the reform is fully implemented, all it does is dump more money and control into the already broken system. Its a malignant reform if anything. We've got the worse reform we could have possibly hope for. Thanks to a partisan effort to get this passed, we all must pay the price. W/out an individual mandate, who is going to pay for all those pre-existing conditions? I know, blame the republicans because that solves the problem. We all know this will end up in the Supreme Court and we know how they will rule. Bottom line, it doesn't matter what your opinion is on the subject, but what will be the outcome. Now we have a system worse off than before. Health care reform should have been implemented in small chunks.
I am not convinced the individual mandate in unconsitutional, but this argument does not convince me that it is constitutional. The government does not mandate that hospitals must treat people regardless of whether they can pay. The government requires that if you participate in medicare and medicaid, then you must provide an emergency room that will provide emergency treatment regardless of ability to pay. There is a difference and there are private hospitals who do not participate in medicare or medicaid.
And yet it still helps lowers premiums and small businesses are lining around the block to take advantage of it. Already more people are getting health insurance. As a matter of fact, the company I consult for just offered up health insurance to us as a result since they have more incentive to do so. You can't dispute the facts on the ground with Tea Party talking points.
except obamacare doesn't reduce costs. and that early congress didn't mandate every living soul in America to buy healthcare....only sailors.
The legal arguments are interesting. I tend to agree that it stretches the commerce clause, (there are several uninsured who do not renege on their bills and therefore do not increase costs) but that doesn't mean the legislation is "bad" or that it couldn't be accomplished through another means.
